WD's My Passport Ultra for Mac delivers quick and easy storage with its 5 Gb/s USB 3.0 Type-C port, while the included USB 3.0 Type-C to Type-A adapter helps ensure compatibility with older machines. USB 3.0 is also known as USB 3.1 Gen 1.
Today I was viewing documents on my Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB External Hard Drive when suddenly the My Passport Ultra window froze. When I tried ejecting my hard drive the proper way by right clicking on the USB connection icon it told me that the operation could not be completed because the hard drive is being used.
So I just unplugged my hard drive, I waited a few minutes and than connected it again. When I connect my WD My Passport Ultra external hard drive to the usb port no sound is made and the external hard drive is not detected, as you can see in the below images the driver for My Passport Ultra seems to have deleted itself, there is no driver what so ever: 2. I unplug, redownload the drivers, restarted, reconnected, and My Passport Ultra is not being detected at all on my Windows 7 pc.
I went to Best Buy and connected My Passport Ultra external hard drive to a couple of their windows laptops running Windows 7 and Windows 8 and the same issue, My Passport Ultra was not detected, it did not run, it did not open, there was no driver found. Just for curiosity I connected My Passport Ultra to one of their Mac Computers and it worked, it opened and launched the window. I tried it on a couple of their macs and it worked, I could see my files, nothing was wrong, It ran well on their macs. I went back and tried it again on a couple of their Windows laptops and nothing happened.
No window launched, no icon notification, no sound, nothing worked the same issue i have been experiencing this whole time. Is there anyone who is experiencing this same issue and has come up with a solution? I really want to be able to access my files on my Windows 7 Professional desktop pc.
I dont want to purchase a Mac computer, I dont have the money to afford one. I am happy using my Windows PC which I customized built a couple years ago. I tried every solution I could find but nothing seems to work, my external hard drive is not being detected whats so ever on windows but it is detected and launches on a mac. Please help, thanks!
This is my Windows PC Desktop Specs. Hello, Could you please provide me with the model number of your My Passport, so I could be more specific while trying to help. Is the LED on, when you connect the drive to your PC? If not, try with another USB cable, in order to exclude power issues. Look in the BIOS too, to see if the drive is recognized there. Make sure, that the My Passport drivers are uninstalled and then reinstalled.
Personally, I would try to access the data on a Mac, backup all the files and format the drive, choosing FAT32 or NTFS format. While on the Mac, you can run the Disk Utility or WD Drive Utilities (links with more information provided below) to search for disk errors and fix them. Delete all partitions, if you have any. Check again on your PC. If the issue persist, check your RMA status and consider drive replacement.
For more information, follow the links below: – How to partition drive in Mac – How to access Disk Utility in Mac – Drive Utilities Download for Mac - WD warranty check Hope I helped, R2D2WD.
A fantastic storage companion for MacBook users. I’ve been a fan of Western Digital storage options for a very long time. A company I used to work for had to do daily backups and per project backups and we relied on Western Digital products to ensure that our data was secured.
In all the time we used WD hard drives, I don’t think we ever had a drive fail. Now that I am working independently and I need storage solutions for my media backups, I immediately looked to Western Digital.
I have a 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro, which only had USB-C ports on it so I was grateful to find that WD had a portable storage option for people in my situation — the My Passport Ultra USB-C edition. DETAILS The My Passport Ultra USB-C edition has the same compact design as classic My Passport drives from WD with the addition of a USB-C port. The case has been modified slightly from previous versions to include a metal cover.
The drive is USB-C ready (as previously mentioned) and compatible with USB 3.0 (with the use of a provided adapter). The hard drive can act as an automatic backup drive and features password protection as an option. The hard drive can also be encrypted using 256-bit AES hardware encryption through WD Security.
Thanks to WD’s built-in software, WD Discovery, the drive also features social media and cloud storage import. This utility software can also help to manage your hard drive with WD Drive Utilities. Out of the box, the drive is Windows 10 ready, but it can be formatted to work with Mac computers, too. The My Passport Ultra USB-C is available in three sizes — 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. It’s very easy to use and has a 3-year limited warranty.
There are two color options — Blue/Black and Silver. USB-C version (blue) versus USB 3.0 version (white/gold) Package Includes:. My Passport Ultra Portable Storage. USB-C™ cable with USB 3.0 adapter. WD Discovery™ software. for WD Backup™, WD Security™ and WD Drive Utilities™.
Quick install guide USER EXPERIENCE The My Passport Ultra USB-C is an updated version of the My Passport Ultra (2017). The older version was only available with a USB 3.0 connection cable, which meant that users like me (with a USB-C MacBook computer) would have to use an adapter or dock in order to interface with the hard drive. The physical size of the hard drive hasn’t changed much model-to-model except that the corners are rounded on the 2018 model and it simply looks sleeker. Both models are formatted for Windows machines out of the box, but you can reformat using Paragon NTFS for Mac (included with the drive).
The My Passport Ultra USB-C is really an exceptional hard drive. It does a beautiful job of storing data and makes it really easy to keep a portable drive with me at all times. The one thing you really have to be cautious of is the fact that this is a mechanical hard drive and not an SSD. Because of that, the hard drive does not have any shock protection.
If it is thrown around a lot, it will be more prone to fail. That said, because it is a ‘portable’ hard drive, I think that it’s probably a bit more svelte than other mechanical drives. To date, I’ve not had any issue with Western Digital’s portable hard drives being carried by hand during daily treks through the urban jungle or on a coast-to-coast airplane ride. One of the first things I usually do with any hard drive I test out is to open up Disk Utility to see that the capacity of the drive matches what the box says. In this case, Disk Utility stated that it was a 2TB hard drive which matched up with the packaging.
Because the drive is formatted for Windows and I use a Mac, I did end up using Paragon NTFS to erase and reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so I could use it freely with my MacBook Pro. After the formatting, the drive showed up as a 2TB drive, but space was shown as ‘free’ instead of used like it did when it was formatted as NTFS. At this point, I ran two disk speed tests on the drive — AJA System Test Lite and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test.
The AJA test is unique because you get a sense for how specific video files will be processed using the selected hard drive. Typically, I get the same type of speed from both tests, but I like running them both regardless. With the AJA test, I selected 1080p (1920×1080) and 4K-Full (4096×3112). Each test returned approximately the same results with a read/write time of 124/122 Mb/s and 126/122 Mb/s respectively. With the Blackmagic Speed Test, I got a read/write result of 125/121.4 Mb/s. The Blackmagic test will show whether or not the speed of the drive tested will hold up with some common video formats. The final test I ran on the My Passport Ultra USB-C was a file transfer test.
I used a video file that was 2.36GB in size. Using the stopwatch function on my iPhone, I timed the transfer at 19.01 seconds. After converting the file size to MB, I calculated the transfer rate to be 124.1 Mb/s, which is in line with what I was seeing from the disk speed tests. CONCLUSION The WD My Passport Ultra USB-C is a solid hard drive for any user of USB-C compatible products. Not only does it have a stylish look to it, but it also functions exceptionally well. I believe that the investment in this product is well worth it.
Even though it is still a mechanical hard drive, the cost difference between this drive and the SSD version is quite a lot (2TB My Passport SSD, $599.99 vs. 2TB My Passport Ultra USB-C $89.99).
This hard drive is much more affordable and it does a great job as a backup drive. NOTE: There is also a available. It’s designed to work with macOS out of the box without having to format it. That drive is available in 2TB and 4TB sizes, but is only available in silver.